SpinUp at U of T Mississauga and Merck Announce 20/20 OptimEyes Technologies as the 2025 Blue Ticket Competition Winner
Toronto, ON – September 23, 2025
University of Toronto Mississauga’s SpinUp and Merck are thrilled to announce 20/20 OptimEyes Technologies as the winner of the 2025 Blue Ticket Competition. The program, now in its second year, supports breakthrough innovation in life sciences.
20/20 OptimEyes Technologies is the recipient of:
A free one-year membership at SpinUp, U of T’s first wet lab startup incubator at the University of Toronto Mississauga (UTM) campus
Mentorship and guidance from seasoned Merck scientists and business leaders
Access and support from U of T’s research talent and network
“Congratulations to 20/20 OptimEyes Technologies and a warm welcome to SpinUp,” said France Gagnon, Vice-Principal, Research and Innovation at UTM. “We’re excited to support them accelerate this next phase in their journey as they advance the development of a transformative drug in eye care that will change lives and provide more comfort for those with glaucoma, dry eye, and other eye diseases.”
“We are honoured to support 20/20 OptimEyes Technologies through the Blue Ticket Competition,” said Christopher Tan, Executive Director, Search & Evaluation, Business Development & Licensing, Infectious Diseases, Vaccines, Oncology at Merck. “Their innovative approach to rethinking corneal drugs to improve patient outcomes aligns with our commitment to groundbreaking health technologies. It’s exciting to partner with such a visionary team.”
“Winning the Merck Blue Ticket is an important recognition for 20/20 OptimEyes and a strong signal of confidence in our vision. Access to the vibrant innovation ecosystem at U of T, including the SpinUp community, with its lab space, equipment, and resources, will help us accelerate validation of our platform through new partnerships and scale our technology to the next level,” said Frances Lasowski, CEO of 20/20 OptimEyes Technologies. “Most importantly, guidance and support from Merck give us the expertise to focus our efforts on the applications where our platform can make the greatest difference for patients’ lives.”
By awarding 20/20 OptimEyes Technologies with this year’s Blue Ticket, SpinUp and Merck reaffirm their commitment to fostering Canada’s life sciences ecosystem and ensuring that early-stage innovations have the infrastructure and mentorship needed to deliver real-world impact in healthcare.
About SpinUp and U of T Entrepreneurship
SpinUp is the first wet lab startup incubator at the University of Toronto, Canada’s leading centre for learning and discovery and one of the world’s top-two universities for health science productivity.
SpinUp is purpose-built to drive lab-based innovation. It offers early-stage startups access to outstanding subsidized wet lab space, equipment, entrepreneurship programming and expertise in a new, state-of-the-art facility at the University of Toronto Mississauga. SpinUp is housed in one of the greenest and most comprehensive wet lab facilities in North America.
SpinUp is proudly part of U of T Entrepreneurship, a network of 12 innovation accelerators across three campuses. Over the past ten years, this network has supported more than 1,500 venture-backed companies, which have created 20,000+ jobs and raised over $14 billion in external investment. U of T is #1 in Canada for research-based startups, and a top 5 in the world for university startup incubators. The University now launches more research-based start-ups than any university in North America outside of MIT.
Learn more about SpinUp and U of T Entrepreneurship.
About Merck
At Merck, known as MSD outside of the United States and Canada, we are unified around our purpose: We use the power of leading-edge science to save and improve lives around the world. For more than 130 years, we have brought hope to humanity through the development of important medicines and vaccines. We aspire to be the premier research-intensive biopharmaceutical company in the world – and today, we are at the forefront of research to deliver innovative health solutions that advance the prevention and treatment of diseases in people and animals. We foster a diverse and inclusive global workforce and operate responsibly every day to enable a safe, sustainable and healthy future for all people and communities.
For more information about our operations in Canada, visit www.merck.ca and connect with us on LinkedIn @MerckCanada.